Culinary Chaos
by Blu Embyr
Summary: In which there is much chaos in the BPRD's kitchen, oranges meet a horrible fate, Broom goes out for breakfast, and Abe is terrible at flirting.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: Don't Forget the Sporks!

Co-written by FlyingFish15 and Blu Embyr.

Disclaimer: We own nothing, except our OCs, Megan and Sara.

Blu: And just so you know, Ff15 wrote the disclaimer, not me.

FF15: Hey! No! Take that out! People skip the disclaimer anyway so they— No! stop writing what I'm saying! HAHAHAHAHA—gggrrrrrrrrrr…what is that? Stop! I mean it, stop!

Blu: And she really did say those things, folks.

Authors' Notes: Warning! None of the things suggested, exhibited, or perpetrated in this fic are to be attempted by an individual or a group of individuals! No one should commit these actions; even if you are fast healing, immortal, or just plain stupid! Ahem, and now introducing the fic by the dynamic duo, the paranormal pair, the terrible two, the abstract Authoresses… FlyingFish15 and Blu Embyr! (hears cricket chirping) Anywhoo, let the culinary chronicle commence! Bwhahahaha!

Well, it had finally happened. The BPRD's cooks had gone on strike.

Professor Broom sighed. He supposed that it had been inevitable. Between Hellboy's enormous appetite, Liz setting the toast on fire when she tried to help out in the kitchen, and various ravenous supernatural creatures getting past the wards and into the kitchen, he had known it would only be a matter of time before the cooks went on strike or just simply quit.

"What we need is a few cooks who are adaptable and intelligent." Professor Broom said. At just that moment, Myers walked into the Professor's study.

"Good afternoon, Professor! I just came in to tell you that I'm going be gone all afternoon to get ready for my date."

"Oh, really?" Broom quickly thought of a way to pawn off the task of finding new cooks onto Meyers. "While you're at it—"

Myers sighed. He _hated_ 'while you're at its'.

"While you're at it, why don't you find a few new cooks for us." Prof. Broom "suggested."

"A splendid idea!" seconded Abe from his tank.

"I'm sure you heard about them being on strike." Broom went on.

"Yeah, the fact that we had untoasted bread and cereal for breakfast kinda clued me in." Myers said, not at all happy with being faced with this new task.

"I'm so glad you volunteered to help out. Have good time on your date!" Prof. Broom said with a smile as Myers left the room with a sour expression on his face.

—Myers POV—

_Why is it always me?_ he wondered, rubbernecking out the window of his car to see if he could spot a bake sale or some wandering girl scouts. _I mean, granted, Agent Lemming the Third was eaten yesterday, rest his soul, and I got out of cleaning the cat pans in Hellboy's room, but still, _where_ am I gonna find cooks? Is there a hotline I can call or something?_

Myers looked out the window to his right just in time to see an obviously homemade sign advertising a bake sale go flying past. He slammed on the brakes and turned the steering wheel so fast that he fishtailed into a U turn, his tires squealing. He came to an abrupt halt five inches from the sign handwritten in washable red marker and accented with absurd amounts of glitter. Behind the heavily laden table set up on the sidewalk were several teenage girls who were staring at him in astonishment as he got out of his car.

"Geez mister, did you really want something that bad?" one of the girls asked, her eyes wide.

Another girl bent down to pick up the loaf of bread she had dropped when the squealing tires had made her jump a foot in the air. Several other teens seemed to be suffering from nervous fits. A slightly underfed teen stared at him out of the corner of her eye.

"My father used to drive like that," she said, "and he didn't wear a seatbelt. And do you know where he is now?"

Myers looked at her suspiciously.

"Where?" he asked.

"Teaching teenagers to drive, of course!"

Somehow that didn't make Myers feel very comfortable about the competency of the teachers in the state's driving schools. Even so, he bravely marched over to the table where several of the girls drew back from him as if his driving skills were contagious.

"Excuse me, do you all hand out samples?" He asked.

"Only if you buy something afterwards." came the reply.

Myers picked up what looked like a giant blueberry muffin and bit into its soft cake-like texture. The pleasantly moist bread seemed to be packed with so many plump blueberries that it was absurd. The strong flavor of cooked berries exploded pleasantly in his mouth.

"Wow, this is really good! Who baked these muffins?" He asked, polishing off the muffin in about three enormous bites.

"We did!" said two girls, stepping forward proudly. (In the tradition of teenage girls worldwide, in the absence of their mothers, they instantly took responsibility for preparing the good food that their mothers cooked!)

Myers looked them over. The one on the right was roughly five-foot-eight, and a good eight inches taller than the one on the left. She was slender and had her shoulder-length chestnut hair pulled back in ponytail. She was wearing capris and a black t-shirt that loudly proclaimed in big bold letters: I (heart) the Phantom of the Opera.

The one on the left didn't look near as friendly or calm as her tall counterpart. She was wearing a camouflage-patterned tanktop that said: I'm Deadly With a Spork! She also had chin length, straight, neon orange hair, which was obviously dyed. She was about five feet tall, and wasn't quite as slender as her friend.

"Are you two interested in a full time cooking job?" Myers asked.

"Huh?" The smaller one asked.

"A full time cooking job," Myers repeated, almost pleadingly, "You'll be paid well, and you'll get rooms."

The two girls looked at each other, which involved the shorter one having to look up at the taller one, and the taller one down at the other, but they were clearly exchanging thoughts. Thinking they might be about to refuse his offer, and that he would spend all afternoon searching for cooks instead of getting ready to go on his date, he decided a compliment would seal the pact.

"Your talents would be greatly appreciated!" he pleaded, all but getting down on one knee.

"Alright. But we have to stop at our houses first to get stuff, and to tell our parents where we're going." the tall one said.

"Which is where, by the way?" the other asked, suddenly looking at him suspiciously.

Myers sighed. "I'll give you directions and your parents can take you there. Your parents can talk to the man in the lobby if they have any questions. By the way, I'll need to know your names so I can tell the staff to open the gate to let you in."

"I'm Sara." said the girl with the Phantom of the Opera t-shirt.

"And I'm Megan." said the one with the neon orange hair.

"Nice to meet you," mumbled Myers, who was hastily scribbling directions to the BPRD on a 'Happy Birthday' napkin that he had swiped off the bake sale table.

"Here," he said, handing it to one of the girls, "These are the directions, you start work today as soon as you get there, but make sure you arrive before five o'clock."

"Ooookaaaayyyyy," said Megan, drawing out the word.

"Great, see you there!" said Myers, hastily scuttling back to his car.

As he drove away, he could hear one of the other teenage girls shouting after him.

"Hey! You said you'd_ buy_ something if we gave you a sample!" she yelled.

— Meyers POV—

"Finally! Now I can get ready for my date and Professor Broom will be happy because I found some cooks!"

Myers celebrated by singing rather off-key to the songs on the radio.

Little did he know that the two teenage 'cooks', while being adaptable as all teenagers are, were also, as befits teenage girls, subject to abrupt changes in mood for apparently no reason (or so guys think, after all, we do have our reasons, don't we ladies?).

—Sara and Megan's POV—

"_That_ was unexpected." said Sara.

Megan, who was more firey tempered than her more discreet friend promptly blurted out:

"What the Hell just happened?" she shouted. Then she looked down at the napkin she was holding. Without reading it, she looked down at the directions that Myers had written. "He has really bad handwriting!"

"You're completely missing the point," said Sara, taking the napkin and putting it in her pocket.

"No I'm not! You would say neat handwriting is very important!"

"Only because my Mom's the one who hands me a list when we go to a grocery store, and when I look at it I see things like 'organ juice' instead of orange juice, and 'smocked turkey' instead of smoked turkey."

Megan ignored her. "So, where are we going anyway? Do you think he works for some rich person who has a mansion and servants?"

"Maybe, but if he does, then he certainly shouldn't have hired you as a cook."

"Well look who's talking! _You_ somehow managed to burn salad!"

"That was an accident! It was in a stainless steel salad bowl and I had no idea the burner on the stove was on!"

"Uh huh." said Megan skeptically.

Sara ignored Megan and turned to the other girls. "We're going to run home and pack. Good luck with the bake sale! See ya!"

The words were barely out of her mouth before Megan grabbed her arm and started towing her much taller friend down the sidewalk.

"Don't you just hate long goodbyes?" Megan asked, still dragging Sara by the arm. Sara let herself be dragged, it was easier than having to admit that she'd been beaten in a scuffle by a person shorter than she was.

THUD!

Megan didn't even stop to investigate the strange 'thud' behind her, that is, until Sara spoke.

"Megan, slow down! You just dragged me into a telephone pole!"

Megan turned and looked at her friend, who was now sporting a spectacular bruise on her forehead where she had been roughly introduced to the said telephone pole.

"Oops." Megan muttered, before tightening her grip on her friend's arm and then running at top speed towards home, dragging Sara behind her.

— A few minutes and a few nasty brush burns later—

"Yay! We're home!" yelled Megan.

"Yeah, great." panted Sara.

Directly in front of them were two houses that were roughly ten feet apart from each other. The blue house on the left was Megan's, and the off-white one on the right was Sara's.

Megan forgot that she was holding onto Sara and dragged her painfully up the stairs and onto the porch of her house before she realized what she was doing. She quickly let go of Sara.

"Look! Mom left the front door open for us." said Megan.

"Um…Megan—" began Sara.

But Megan ignored her, turned around, and ran straight at the door.

THUD!

Megan was flung backwards as she came in contact with the glass storm door.

"Serves you right!" Sara yelled as she gathered her scattered dignity and walked over to her house. Megan rubbed her forehead and stuck her tongue out at Sara. Sara didn't see her, which was probably fortunate. Megan scowled, flung the door open and marched inside, letting it slam with an almost painful crash.

"Mom! Sara and I got jobs! Could you drive us there?" She yelled, kicking her left foot to try and dislodge her stubborn flip-flop from her foot.

"Sure. What kind of job are you two doing?"

"We're gonna be cooks and we're gonna be paid and given rooms and—"

"Rooms?" said her mother, interrupting the deluge of information. "Why? They're not expecting you to stay there, are they?"

"Yeah. It's the whole 'kitchen staff on duty 24/7' thing. The guy that hired us gave us directions to the place and said you could talk to the man in the lobby if you have questions." Megan was going to say that he had really bad handwriting, but figured that it wasn't necessary.

"Well, alright. It's the summer after all, so you don't have to worry about school. Go get ready to go, Megan. I'll talk to the man in the lobby and _then _decide if you're staying."

"Thanks mom!" Megan yelled before running up the stairs to her room. She stumbled over a ball of black fur on the top stair, which, from the yowl, turned out to be a cat.

"Aaag, stupid place to sleep, furball!" Megan yelled over her shoulder as she flung the door to her bedroom open, letting it slam into the wall.

Then she raced over to the window, stumbling over a stack of books and some CDs on her way, and threw the window open.

"It's about time!" Sara commented, leaning out of her own bedroom window, which was conveniently placed directly across from Megan's. "What did you do, fall down the stairs? I heard yelling."

"No, I fell over the cat. But Mom said YES! Well, sorta."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"She wants to talk to the guy in the lobby before she lets us work there."

"Great! Don't forget to bring your toothpaste!" That said, Sara disappeared from view, presumably to pack.

"'K!" Megan yelled back, rummaging around beneath a pile of clothes lying on the floor in a vain attempt to find some clean ones.

"Arrg, why do I never have any clean clothes?"

"Because you don't look in your dresser or closet!" Yelled Sara from her open window. "The dresser and the closet are the sacred home of clean clothes! They flock to live there like multi-colored sheep and—"

"I get it! I get it!" Megan yelled back, throwing clothes out of her dresser and onto her messy, unmade bed at random. This procedure would surely result in her wearing some very strange outfits. Megan looked dubiously at the closet, and decided not to open it when a long hairy spider's leg protruded from under the door.

Swallowing what would have been a very loud "eek!", Megan instead uprooted her entire room looking for a bag to put her clothes in; blowing her pesky bangs out of her face.

"Hey! Sara!" Megan yelled, remembering something.

"What?"

"Don't forget to pack your hairbrush!"

"Don't _you_ forget soap!" Sara returned, and a bag suddenly flew through Megan's window. "Ya might need that!"

"Nice toss!" Megan called, leaning precariously out of her window so she could see Sara's smiling face in the opposite window. "And don't forget your swimsuit or lava lamp!" Megan yelled.

"My swimsuit?" Sara muttered in confusion, retreating back into her room and grabbing her blue and green lava lamp off her bedside table and carefully packing it beside her neatly-folded t-shirts. Sara looked around her impeccably neat room for anything she'd forgotten.

"And bring SPORKS!" Megan's voice penetrated the brief silence, which was followed by her crazy laugh. Sara rolled her eyes and ignored her spork-obsessed friend as she stuffed some liquid soap into a plastic bag in case it leaked in transport.

"I'm ready!" Megan yelled, leaning out her window once more. "Meet me on my porch and my Mom'll drive us!" There was a loud bang as Megan slammed her window shut. Then Sara caught a brief glimpse of Megan's messily stuffed bag as she dragged it past the window and presumably out the door of her notoriously messy bedroom.

Sara closed her own window and slid her suitcase down the stairs, opting to slide down the banister with a joyous whoop. Ignoring the horrible bang of her suitcase as it hit an umbrella stand, Sara scribbled a hasty note telling her mother where she was and what she was doing. She left it on the kitchen table and bolted out the door, grabbing her suitcase and a spare key off a key rack on her way out the door.

When she got over to her friend's house, Megan was already running back inside to retrieve something she'd forgotten. Sara rolled her eyes and got into the backseat of Megan's Mom's car. When Megan clambered into the car after Sara, she breathlessly explained that that was the third thing she'd run back inside for.

"Everyone buckled up?" Asked Megan's mom, a tad impatient to go before Megan remembered something else she "needed" to bring. Megan suddenly sat up straight and reached for the door handle.

"Wait! I've forgotten my hair dye!" She cried, scrambling out of the car before anyone could protest.

When Megan returned, her mom promptly locked the car to prevent Megan from getting out again.

"Wait! I've forgotten my hairties!"

"Are you serious!" Sara said incredulously.

"No, I was only kidding to see your expressions." Megan said as her mom pulled out of the driveway.

Little did they know what they were getting themselves into. They had no way of knowing that their entire concept on reality was about to be shattered by the existence of what had formally been fictional creatures: a six foot tall demon, a pyrokinetic, and a (FF15: rather attractive!) fish-man…

Authors' Notes: What did you think? Any suggestions? PWEASE review! (Note, chapter two is coming soon!)


	2. Introductions and Insults

Chapter Two: Introductions and Insults

Co-written by FlyingFish15 and Blu Embyr.

Blu: Sorry for the long wait, but FF15 here wants to complete her fic "Shadow to a Heart" before school starts.

Disclaimer: We don't own: Hellboy, The Phantom of the Opera, Mission Impossible, Elm Street, Elf Street, Crawford Street, the Gobi desert, the ocean, the sea, Happy Birthday napkins, Rootbeer, China, Scotland, Waste Management Services, a callbox, kippers, ballpoint pens—

FF15: Blu, why don't you just tell them what we _do_ own and save a lot of time?

Blu:…ooookaaaayyyy…

FF15: I'm glad you see my logic.

Blu: We only own: Megan, Sara, Megan's Mom, Agent Drummand the Fae (A kind of fairy thing), Agent Lemming, the plot, and the humor. Everything else is owned by someone else and they live somewhere else away from here.

FF15: Where is here, BTW?

Blu: Mars. Look out for the lack of oxygen and the vampiric bunnies!

FF15: What? (coughs from brief lack of oxygen and gets chased by the vampiric bunnies.)

Blu: Have fun!

Megan's mother squinted at the writing on the back of the Happy Birthday napkin as she also tried to concentrate on driving.

"This guy's handwriting is _terrible_!" Megan's Mom remarked, "All I can make out of the next line are the words 'turn right onto—is that Elm or Elf street? Girls, look for an Elf or Elm street, or anything else that starts with an 'e' and has three letters."

The car ride passed in silence for a while—that is, until Sara glanced out the window, just in time to see a sign with the words 'Elm Street' go flying by.

"Hey! We just passed the street! It's back there!" Sara yelled.

"What?" Megan's Mom said, turning the steering wheel so the car did an abrupt U turn in the middle of the road, throwing Sara and Megan against the opposite side of the car.

As they got onto the correct street, Megan remarked:

"I think my mom's been taking driving lessons from that guy that hired us." she whispered to Sara.

"I heard that!" said Megan's Mom, "And why don't you try navigating for a while!"

So saying, she tossed the napkin with the directions into the back seat of the car. Megan picked it up and looked at it.

"This makes no sense." She said, turning it sideways to see if she was holding it wrong.

"You're looking at it upside down!" Sara said, reaching over and turning the napkin right side up. Then she looked at it with a puzzled expression. "Actually, I think it looked better the other way."

"Are you _sure_ this is written in English?" asked Megan, glaring at the scribbled 'words'.

"I'm pretty sure it is," said Sara "See, right there it says 'turn onto'—oh dear, it either says Crawford or Rootbeer, I'm not sure which."

"Eineey meeny miny moe…" started Megan.

"Wait! Look, there's a sign for Crawford road! Oops, it says we passed it two miles ago." Sara said.

"What! Give me those directions!" shouted Megan's Mom, "I wouldn't let you navigate a bicycle, let alone a car! You'd probably end up in the middle of the Gobi desert!"

"No we wouldn't, we'd see the sand first." Megan pointed out.

"Technically we'd see the ocean first, because you'd have to cross the sea to get to China." Sara corrected.

"The Gobi desert is in China?" asked Megan, "I thought it was in Scotland."

Half an hour, multiple mistakes and frazzled nerves later, they drove up in front of a large, wrought iron gate.

"Waste Management Services? This can't be right." muttered Megan's mother.

Megan reached forward and picked up the happy birthday napkin.

"Yes it is!" she said, "See, right here it says 'waste management services', only it's spelled with two W's and with what I _think_ is the number seven."

"Great! Now how do we get inside?" asked Sara.

"Ooh! Look! A callbox! I want to press the button!" yelled Megan, opening the door and clambering out of the car.

She ran up to the callbox and pressed the button but, to her dismay, it was only then that she discovered that she was too short to talk into it.

"What is it?" a harsh voice demanded from the callbox.

"I'm Megan Lewis. And Sara Collins' here too, we're the new cooks."

"What? Speak louder!"

"We're the new cooks!"

"Talk louder! I can't hear you!"

Megan looked at Sara with a helpless expression.

"Try jumping." suggested Sara.

Megan turned back to the callbox, scowling and knowing she was about to suffer a major loss in the dignity department.

"I'm (jump) Megan! And (jump) Sara's (jump) here too! (jump) We're the (jump) new (jump) cooks!"

"Do you have a speaking problem?" the voice from the callbox demanded.

"No, (jump) I have (jump) to jump (jump) because (jump) I can't (jump) reach the (jump) callbox!" Megan said, flapping her arms as she tripped and stumbled around, trying to regain her balance.

The gates began to open, so Megan started back to the car, where her mother and Sara were suffering from hysterical laughing fits.

"It's not funny!" Megan grumbled, closing the car door.

"Yes—haha— it is! Hahaha!" Sara said between laughs; falling once more into hysterical laughter once she'd caught sight of Megan's expression as she flopped into the backseat; scowling and muttering about the indignity of having to jump. Megan's mom was still chuckling quietly when the threesome walked into the huge lobby of 'Waste Management Services', the two friends towing their luggage.

The guard at the desk was wearing a suit that looked so stiff, it was no wonder he was standing so straight for hours. Megan looked up at the ceiling, trying to see how high it was while walking, and almost crashed into Sara. She had stopped to look at the brass symbol sunk into the green marble floor, while Megan's mom kept walking towards the suited man.

"Good afternoon, Ma'm." The guard nodded to Megan's mother, and nervously glanced at Sara and Megan, who were trying to figure out why a Waste Management Service place would have that symbol.

"Same to you. These two, Megan," Megan's Mom pointed to Megan, who seemed to be gesturing wildly with her hands and saying something about "maybe they chop garbage into bits with that sword."

"…and her friend, Sara," Megan's Mom pointed at Sara, who was laughing quietly and asking what the triangle was for.

"Are the new cooks. They didn't say who hired them…"

"That would be John Myers, I suspect." The man provided, taking in Megan's orange hair and Sara's "I love the Phantom of the Opera" shirt.

"Thank you, sir. I just need to know…"

Behind Megan's mother and the suited man, Megan was thinking about what the triangle could mean.

"I know! Reduce, reuse, recycle!" Sara said excitedly.

"That _must_ be it!" Megan agreed, stooping to stare closely at the symbol. "After all, who would know more about the three R's of garbage than a garbage place."

"Waste Management Services, _not_ garbage place." Sara corrected, staring around at the balcony. Occasionally, one or two people in black suits would come out of a door, walk along the balcony, and disappear through another door.

"Hey, what's with the pointy thumb on the hand, do you think?" Megan asked, standing up.

"I don't know, but it's probably to save cost on metal." Sara looked towards the desk where the man was standing. "Hey, your mom's coming back, and she looks pretty satisfied." Sara said, hoping that they could go ahead with the job. Since it was summer, there was little else for the two friends to do; and besides, they were getting paid!

"Well girls, I've asked the man everything I need to know; and it's fine with me if you stay." Megan and Sara suppressed whoops of joy and grinned broadly instead. Megan's mom smiled as well and began to walk towards the doors, calling over her shoulder. "Have fun you two! Oh, and Megan?"

"Yes, mum?" Megan asked, turning around.

"Please don't dye your hair orange again, it clashes horridly with your tan. And don't dye Sara's hair orange, it'll clash with hers as well." That bit of wisdom said and done, Megan's mom walked through the double doors.

"Ok!" Megan called after her, picking up her black duffle bag and beginning to walk towards the man in the suit.

"Stay there, and watch your hands and elbows on the way down." The man said, as if saying this was getting old. Sara and Megan had barely enough time to exchange glances before the floor dropped out from underneath them.

"Wow!" Sara gasped, looking at all the other little platforms moving up and down on the sides of the elevator cavern.

"Oooo, don't look down if you don't like heights!" Megan said, staring over the edge and down at the bottom far below.

"Were are we, anyway?" Sara asked, looking around at the big blue numbers spray-painted on the concrete walls.

"I dunno, what do I look like, a map? I have no idea where we are! Just that it's really cool!" Megan leaned out over the edge and looked down, pointing at something below them. "Hey! What's that?"

Sara looked over the edge and almost lost her lunch. They were dizzyingly high up, the floor of the concrete cavern was about the size of a postage stamp below them, and there were more elevator platforms zooming up towards them.

"Megan, look out, they're gonna hit you!" Sara hauled her friend backwards, just as the other, much faster, elevator zoomed up where Megan's head had been a second ago.

"Wow, that was…_totally awesome_! Let's do that again!" Megan yelled, standing up from the floor and getting ready to lean over the edge. Before she could and before Sara could stop her, the elevator sank into place at a docking station in front of a big blue number 54.

"Do we get off here?" Sara asked, looking around at the bare shelf of concrete. Just then, a smiling man with a mane of red hair pulled back in a low ponytail and wearing a black suit burst through the only door.

"Sorry I'm late, I had some minor trouble with trying to get through the crowded halls." If he was surprised to see two teenage girls, he didn't show it.

"Hey, I'm Megan and this puddle on the floor is Sara." Megan said, stomping on Sara's foot to get her to stop going dreamy-eyed.

"Good afternoon, my name is Agent Drummand. You two must be the new cooks."

"Yup! Pleased to meet you." Megan said, picking up her bag and Sara's suitcase, seeing as how she'd begun to drool and her eyes became unfocused. Drummand looked at Sara and blinked.

"Are you alright, miss?" This caused Sara to drool even more and flop over on Megan with a dreamy sigh, making Megan drop their bags. Megan glared at her from her hunched-over position and pushed Sara upright, only to have her tip the other way.

"Oh! Oh dear, I'm sorry; I get that a lot, you see." Drummand said apologetically, picking up the duffle bag and the suitcase as Megan supported her friend.

"Get what a lot?"

"The dreamy look, the drooling, the unfocused eyes…you see, I've got a bit of Fae blood in my family." Drummand said, leading the way through the door. Megan prodded Sara sharply in her back and she began to walk forward as if in a trance.

"Then I feel very sorry for you." Megan said, continually poking Sara in her back to keep her moving. While she was doing this, Megan looked around at the clean white tile floor of the hall, the whitewashed walls, and for a change of pace, the people walking around in white doctor's uniforms.

"She'll act like that while I'm around, but when I leave she'll be back to normal." The Agent held the door to a room open, allowing Megan to steer Sara into the room.

"You will, of course, need to have a quick medical exam before we introduce you to some of the special agents." He continued, ushering them into a sterile, white room filled with nurses and medical machinery used for who knows what.

However, Megan couldn't see a thing because Sara was standing in front of her, drooling. Drummand dropped their bags by the door and left with a brilliant white smile and a nod in their direction. As soon as he closed the door, Sara snapped out of her trance and looked around.

"How did we get in here?" she asked, looking at the nurses, who smiled politely and continued whatever they were doing.

"I dragged you after you went all woozy in the elevator cavern." Megan explained. "Now move, I can't see where we are."

"Oh. Sorry." Sara said, stepping aside from her position in front of Megan, which proved to be a mistake. Megan took one look at the beeping machinery and the nurses, and her eyes grew to the size of tennis balls.

"Nooo! Death first! I'll take you all on!" Megan suddenly yelled as she pulled a ballpoint pen out of nowhere and held it as if to stab someone with the point. "DIE!" she yelled, gesturing in a stabbing motion towards the nearest nurse.

"Megan! Calm down!" hollered Sara, grabbing hold of her arms and dragging her suddenly rabid friend backwards.

"DIE! DIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!" Megan screeched, managing to walk forward even though Sara was still pulling Megan back with all her might.

"And give me that stupid pen before you hurt someone!" Sara yelled, prying the pen from her friend's grasp. Megan immediately began chasing Sara around the room, yelling something that sounded a lot like:

"Give me that back! Or I'll pound you so hard when I reach you, you won't know how you reached six feet under so fast!"

But, it could also have easily been:

"Gimme my ballpoint pen back or I'll beat you with a fish! Better yet, a… KIPPER!"

Megan's tirade of words was suddenly cut off by a well-placed foot that she tripped over, her truly spectacular fall ending in a sprawled landing. Sara was tempted to hold up a sign with a 9.5 written on it in red marker, but as she had no sign or marker, she kept quiet. Megan looked up from her position on the tiled floor, panting slightly and glaring at Sara.

"Truce?" Sara asked, holding out the hand that wasn't holding the pen in a death grip.

"Only if you give my pen back!" Megan said, pointing to her pen.

"Ok, I'll give you your pen back and then truce."

"Ok." Megan got up and they shook hands; Megan stowing her trusty ballpoint back in her belt.

"Well, you're certainly quite strong." One of the nurses pointed out, breaking the stunned silence. Megan nodded, her orange hair looking reminiscent of a blaring beacon in the stark white of the room.

"Yup! What I lack in height I make up for in ferocity and strength." She leaned towards the nurse and whispered conspiratorially in her ear. "Between you and me, it's not easy to push people around who are taller than you; so you either have to kick them behind their knees or use blunt force. Personally, I choose blunt force; it's more impressive and you build muscles that way."

Behind Megan, Sara mouthed the words: "Just smile and nod, smile and nod." The nurse did just that, before telling Megan to climb onto the table. Apparently, Megan had succeeded in frazzling the nurses, because they all had the same dazed look to them.

_But_, Sara thought, _that could just be the brightness of Megan's hair, and how horribly it clashes with her dark tan._

Megan slowly edged onto the table, staring warily at the tray of scalpels and pointy metal sticks. The nurse that stood behind her caught her gaze and laughed.

"We're only nurses, not surgeons. Now lie down and stick this under your tongue." The nurse handed Megan a thermometer, which she stuck in her mouth. No sooner had she laid down on the table, than the nurse pressed a stethoscope to her stomach. Megan flinched at the coldness of the metal, and her tickle reflex kicked in.

Sara was receiving the same treatment, and the nurse had hardy told her that she was going to take a small sample of blood, when Megan suddenly jerked violently on the table next to Sara, and rolled off it onto the floor.

The poor nurse looked so shocked and stunned that she just stood there as Megan rolled around on the floor, laughing hysterically.

"She's ticklish." Sara said around the thermometer in her mouth. "Especially her stomach and ribs."

"Oh." The nurse said faintly as Megan climbed back onto the table, stifling another bout of laughter. A thought occurred to Sara just as the nurse tending to her withdrew some blood.

"You might not want to try and take blood from Megan."

"Why's that?" The nurse asked, placing a bandage over the tiny pinprick where she stuck the needle.

"She doesn't like having things poked into her." No sooner had Sara said this, than there came an earsplitting screech from the next table as Megan leapt up from the table and began dancing around.

_That poor nurse isn't going to get much sleep tonight._ Sara thought, staring at the nurse, who wore the same shocked and stunned expression as before. Sara also noticed that the nurse had somehow managed to get blood from Megan before she noticed.

"You ought to count yourselves lucky, the last person who did that didn't get any of her blood, just some nasty bruises and mental destabilization." Sara pointed out as her nurse took the blood sample and labeled it. Megan had calmed down, but absolutely refused to go anywhere near the table.

"How did you get so many bruises and scrapes?" The nurses asked Sara, almost at the same time.

"Well, after we were hired, Megan dragged me all the way home, banging me into a telephone pole on the way there—"

"Hey! That was a mistake, I didn't do it on purpose!" Megan objected.

"Of course not, dear." The nurse assured her.

"Yeah, and after that I accidentally dragged Sara up my front steps, and then I ran into the door, and not long after that I tripped over my cat." Megan finished, eyeing the tweezers the nurse was brandishing suspiciously.

"Don't worry, I only need a hair." The nurse looked at Megan's neon orange hair and almost thought twice. She carefully plucked a strand of orange hair out of Megan's scalp, and quickly put it in a little glass vial she was holding in her hand.

"All done! Please collect your things and wait outside the door for Agent Lemming to come and collect you." The nurse ushered Megan out the door as if she was glad to be rid of her. (Blu: I can't imagine why that would be, can you?)

Sara joined her shortly, having had a bit of a problem with the pulling out of several of her long chestnut hairs.

"Ow…my scalp still tingles." Sara commented, before spotting yet another man in a black suit walking towards them.

"Hello, I'm Agent Lemming the Fourth. You two, I assume, are the new cooks?"

"Uh-huh, that's us." Sara said, picking up her suitcase as Megan wondered what had happened to the other three Agent Lemmings.

"Great! Follow me, and I'll introduce you to our special agents."

"Oooo! You mean like, we're gonna cook for some government-funded, top-secret, crime fighting place!" Megan interrupted excitedly. Agent Lemming led them back out into the elevator cavern where they awaited the arrival of an elevator platform.

"Wow, either you're a good guesser or someone already told you." Lemming said, pressing the "up" button again.

"I guessed. I suppose it was the fact that almost everyone we've met has 'Agent' in front of their name, the floor tile sinking down into a vast cavern, the alias of Waste Management Services, the man with the Fae blood, the medical checks, the reference to 'special agents,' and did I mention that you're all carrying guns?" Megan climbed onto the platform and it began to move upward.

"Now that you mention it, it is pretty obvious." Lemming said, smiling a bit. Sara held up her hands like they were guns and began humming "Mission Impossible" as she and Megan began to have a fake gunfight. Agent Lemming laughed as the elevator stopped and the friends continued the "fight" all the way through a pair of carved brass doors, which were burnished to a bright shine.

"Wow…" Sara gasped, staring at the rows upon rows of bookshelves, which were all packed to capacity and reached the ceiling. "I think I just died and went to heaven!" She dropped her suitcase with a dull thump on the red carpet and walked into the middle of the room, turning in a slow circle so she could take it all in.

"Dude! Sweet digs!" Megan exclaimed, practically running around the room so she could see everything. "I love how the fireplace is all open and stuff. Oooo! Sara! Check this out!" Megan was reading a small piece of paper, which had been framed and stuck on a post in front of a gigantic fish tank; which seemed to be devoid of fish.

"Wow, I _love_ this room!" Sara said, walking over to the tank and staring in.

"Yeah, though Icthyo Sapiens is a funny name for a fish or whatever. Though, I suppose if you like science it'd work." Megan commented, tapping the glass covering the paper. Sara turned to ask Agent Lemming what an Icthyo Sapiens was, but her question lodged firmly in her throat.

"April 14, 1865. I wonder if that's when whoever owns this place got the fish." Megan continued.

"Uhm…Megan…." Sara choked out.

"Wow! That make's it…" Megan paused and seemed to be doing the equation in her head. "Sara, quit poking me, I'm trying to think." Megan muttered, giving up on trying to count while Sara was poking her. "…really old!"

"Actually, I'm 140 years old. 141 next year, if you want to know." A calm voice said behind Megan. Megan gulped and slowly turned around, to see a blue fish-man standing at one of the bookshelves, selecting a book.

_Uh-oh, now I'm in for it._ Megan thought, going over what she'd recently said in her head, and mentally slapping herself.

"Oh dear. Sorry, mister Sapiens!" Megan apologized, her eyes the size of tennis balls for the second time that day. Sara seemed to be choking on something, because she kept making weird noises in her throat and her mouth was hanging open. The fish man turned around and blinked, his hand on the spine of a book he was about to select.

"Actually, my name's Abraham Sapien. Please call me Abe though." He turned back to his book selection as if people reacted like that every day. "And at least you didn't make such a fool of yourself as some of the other Agents." Abe selected three more books and turned around. "I seem to recall one going off on how my creation was blasphemy and such." Abe walked towards the metal bookstands in front of his tank and began placing the books on them.

Sara got over her choking fit long enough to move smartly out of the way, but Megan was still rooted to the floor, horrified. Abe caught her look out of the corner of his eye.

"And really that's not necessary, I'm quite friendly. Think of it this way," Abe seemed to pause as if thinking of how to say his next words. "Do you remember the first time Sara met you? Your memory seems to say that she commented on the hideous color of your hair that day."

Now, it was Megan's turn to make the choking noise.

"And now look at the two of you! The best of friends." Abe said happily, placing another book on a stand.

"How?" Megan gasped out. Abe seemed to get her drift.

"I'm psychic and telepathic." He explained. Megan, for the first time, noticed that he was wearing a big black thing around his neck that was filled with water, which kept bubbling and hissing.

"Wow." Sara said quietly from somewhere behind Abe. Megan wasn't surprised to see that Sara was leaning heavily on the back of a chair, as Megan felt a tad faint as well. No sooner had she thought this than Abe stared at her.

"If you're going to faint, you might not want to stand there; you could fall on one of the stands."

"So, you're one of the—" Sara began. Abe sat down in a chair and blinked at her through a pair of water-filled goggles.

"Strictly speaking, yes I am." He answered.

"If you're one of the special agents, who are the others?" Sara asked nervously. Abe cocked his head to one side and gestured towards the door. Megan and Sara tore their eyes away from the blue man in time to see the door to the room open.

They sighed in relief as the person who entered the room first was a normal-looking woman, although she seemed a bit depressed. The woman smiled at Abe and the two girls before sitting in a chair next to Abe.

"Hey. I'm Liz."

"Sara."

"Megan." They both said, their voices a bit faint from the shock of being introduced to Abe. Liz's eyes lingered on Megan's neon hair before she looked over at the fish man with one eyebrow raised. Abe was smiling to himself.

"You didn't scare them, did you?" Liz asked, looking from Abe to the two girls, and back again.

"Not on purpose, but I do believe I gave them a bit of a shock." Abe pointed out. Liz continued staring at him. "What? They're getting over it." He said indignantly.

Indeed, seeing someone getting along with Abe calmed the friends down enough that they closed their mouths and their eyes began to shrink back to normal size.

"Yeah, they get over it just in time to see H.B., and you know—" Liz was interrupted by the door opening again, and a six-foot tall red demon walking into the room.

"Hey, hey, hey; the gang's all here." He said, his deep voice sounding a bit rough. "Funny how everyone's eyes do that when they first meet me." He said, making a languid gesture with his stone right hand towards the girls' dinner-plate-sized eyes before he flopped down into a well-worn chair. After a moment of silence, broken only by fresh choking noises, the demon pulled a cigar from one of the pockets of his brown trench coat and lit it.

"Hey. Name's Hellboy." He growled out, breathing smoke out into the air. Since Sara and Megan were in no fit state to say anything, Liz introduced them.

"The one with the orange hair is Megan, and the one with the Phantom of the Opera shirt is Sara." Liz said, folding her arms in her black sweater. Hellboy grunted.

"I prefer some of the older Phantoms, how 'bout you." He asked Sara. She stopped choking abruptly and her eyes grew a bit smaller now that they were on her favorite subject.

"Yeah, but the new movie just makes his face look like a bad sunburn, and it's only on the right side." Sara said.

"Really? I haven't seen it yet. How's it beyond that?" Hellboy asked.

"Not bad. Carlotta's terrible though, Christine's a brunette and, I thought, a bit of a ditz." Sara sank into her chair and leaned on the armrest.

"Hmmph. Could they follow the book just once for a change?" Hellboy asked rhetorically. Abe and Liz stared at the chatting pair, both thinking that Sara had gotten over her shock rather quickly.

"Aren't they all changed in some way? Oh, and I forgot to mention that the Persian isn't in there; Madame Giry takes his place."

"Too bad, the Persian wasn't bad in the book." Hellboy said. Megan stared at them, her right eye twitching rhythmically.

_What the Hell?_ She thought, leaning back against the post in front of Abe's tank.

"Which version of the book have you read?" Sara asked.

"The unabridged one."

"Really? I've read that one too!" Sara exclaimed.

With a dull thump, Megan fell over in a dead faint, narrowly missing the bookstand that Abe had said she might hit.

"I see things are definitely going to be more interesting around here." Observed Abe, looking from the crumpled heap on the floor to the chatting duo.

Authors' Notes: So…whatcha think? Review and tell us, please! Oh, and sending any funny situations you can think of the characters getting into would be wonderful! Thanx to those who reviewed! I love exclamation points!

Margolo Blu: lol, we think everyones pretty much unprepared and about to have their world turned upside-down.

epalladino: You're welcome, and here's your update! Hope you liked it!


	3. The First of Many Disasters

Co-written by FlyingFish15 and Blu Embyr.

Disclaimer: We own nothing, save what sprung from the depths of our own twisted imaginations…

Author Notes: Blu: OMG!!!!! We ACTUALLY _UPDATED_!!! It's the Apocalypse!!

FF15: We're soooo sorry it hasn't been updated in like…two years…

Blu: But we found our notes, and we kept getting reviews from people who wanted us to continue the fic but weren't very hopeful, so we decided to update!

FF15: Anyhoo…just so you know, we have finally hammered out a plot, and you **NEED TO KNOW THIS BEFORE YOU CONTINUE OR IT WILL MAKE NO SENSE**. Now that I have your attention…

Blu: No kidding.

FF15: This fic is set **after** the events of the movie. It is slightly alternate universe since Broom is still alive, but we figured that Kroenen would have simply booked it out of the BPRD and therefore wouldn't get around to killing our dear Professor Bruttenholm.

Blu: Yay! And, due to his immense will to survive (and make sure HB doesn't make a complete arse of himself…) Broom is alive and well and his cancer is in remission.

FF15: More 'Yay!' We **will** be updating!

Blu: Enjoy the chapter!

* * *

Faces swam in and out of focus above Megan, large blurs of tan, red, and blue. She just lay there, watching the faces swim and thinking of how comfy the book she was lying on was. Megan's memories suddenly returned in a rush, and it seemed to all present that she had just spazzed out or been bitten by something. Megan sat up so quickly she cracked heads with Hellboy, who didn't really feel it, and then stared around at the small gaggle of people.

"Whatever it is, I didn't do it!" she shouted, her expression slightly panicked.

"She's fine," Sara announced, grinning from ear to ear. Megan rubbed her forehead where she'd hit Hellboy's horns.

"Dude, my head hurts," she muttered, staring as if entranced at a spot just over Abe's left shoulder.

"No wonder, you just cracked head-to-horns with Red," Liz pointed out, smiling. Hellboy grinned.

"By the way, you got a guilty conscience?" he asked, in response to her declaration of innocence.

"NO!" Megan yelled, a tad too quickly. Abe turned to Sara.

"I'd advise you to carefully examine your suitcase before opening it; there might be something inside it," he recommended. Sara glared at Megan.

"What? I didn't put anything in it, when would I've gotten the chance?" Megan said defensively. But before Sara could force Megan to fess up, the door to the study opened again. Abe and Liz immediately stood up and Hellboy jumped to his feet, sending a few shockwaves through the floor.

"Evening,—"

"I was out for that long?" Megan interrupted, standing up and trying to see past Abe. An elderly man wearing a suit and a smile walked down the small set of steps and into the study, leaning on a cane.

"Professor Trevor Broom. You two must be the new cooks."

"Is everyone we meet gonna say that?" Megan whispered to Sara. Sara ignored her and shook Professor Broom's outstretched hand.

"Yes, that's us. I'm Sara Collins and this is Megan Lewis."

"Yo," Megan said, shaking his hand as well.

"I see you've been introduced to Hellboy, Abe and Liz," he commented, noting their ruffled appearance.

_You can say that again._ Megan thought to herself, remembering too late that Abe could read minds. But, if he had heard her comment he made no indication of it.

"I don't suppose anyone's shown you how to get around?" Broom said, taking two papers off the top of a stack on his desk.

"Nope," Sara said, looking at the map he'd handed to her. Megan turned hers over and over in her hands, turned to face the elevator cavern, and then turned the map a different direction. Liz coughed suddenly to stifle a laugh at the confused expressions on the girls' faces.

"Good luck, and we'll see you at dinner tonight. I'm quite certain it will be a meal worth remembering, considering Agent Myers's glowing report," Broom said with a smile and a twinkle in his eye. The two girls exchanged glances as they were ushered to the doors, Hellboy's shout of "steak, please!" ringing in their ears.

XXXXX

Several wrong left turns, four trips up and down the elevator system, three sets of bad directions, five shouting-matches over Megan not wanting to stop to ask for directions, and many stubbed toes later, Sara and Megan finally arrived at the kitchen, feeling and looking like they had accompanied Frodo on his journey to Mordor and back again.

"So…." Megan trailed off, staring at all the larger-than-life rows of stovetops, long wooden counters, and tons of metal cooking utensils hanging off every available hook. Sara gave Megan her patented "Dear God what have you gotten us into" look. Megan scowled.

"It's not _all_ my fault, and besides, how bad can this be?"

"Famous last words, my friend. Famous. Last. Words," Sara said, stowing her bag neatly on a clear space of counter by the huge double-doors. Megan shrugged and followed suit, haphazardly chucking her bag in the general direction of the door. It landed on a rack of oversized metal pots with a cacophonous clatter. Sara winced.

"Pull yourself together man! Er, woman…" Megan said, watching as her partner in crime pulled back her hair in a thoroughly businesslike manner. A sudden sparkle had come to Sara's eyes, and she grinned mischievously.

"Ready to go exploring in a room full of sharp stuff that can cut our fingers off?" she asked. Megan grinned.

"Who gets to play with the gas stovetops?"

Sara streaked off towards said long row of stovetops. "I call it! I call it!"

Megan huffed. "Dang, now all I've got is the butcher's knives….and a SPORK!" She pulled said SPORK out of her pocket, grinning rabidly and holding it much like an explorer holds a machete.

Sara slid to a halt in front of the first stovetop and inspected the various complicated knobs and dials. She shrugged and twisted one at random. With several clicking noises, the igniter lit up the gas flames to a brilliant steady electric blue. Mesmerized, Sara leaned closer and turned the knob back and forth, watching the flames shoot higher and then shrink until they were barely there.

"Ooooh, prettttttyyyyy bluuuuuueeeee flaaaaaaaammmeeeesssssssssssss…" she cooed, turning the flames up full blast and leaning precariously over them.

Megan glanced up from trying unsuccessfully to balance a garlic press on her nose; she giggled.

"Keep that up Sara, and POOF! No eyebrows!"

Sara leaned back slowly and turned the flames down to a more reasonable level, holding the knob between two fingers as though she expected it to bite her fingernails off at any moment.

Megan rolled her eyes, then seized her borderline pyromaniac of a friend and dragged her over to the fridge. As soon as Megan relinquished her grip, Sara threw the refrigerator door open, narrowly avoiding whacking Megan in the head with it, and scanned the contents arranged less than neatly on the shelves. Privately, Sara thought it looked as though the entire staff of the BPRD had rooted through the fridge in the course of a midnight snack.

"Ok, seriously now, what do you think we should cook?" Sara asked, sorting through the food in the refrigerator.

"Hey! Look! There's a little whiteboard on the refrigerator door that says how much of everything we have to make!" Megan shouted. Her expression turned to panic as she saw that they had to cook at least 150 pounds of meat, 52 pounds of vegetables, 40 quarts of fruit, and 18 gallons of something to drink. "Good lord! I had no idea there were this many people!" Megan stumbled away from the evil whiteboard, which seemed to be mocking her with its equally evil black writing, and looked at the refrigerator dubiously. "There's _no way_ there are 150 pounds of meat in there!"

"150 pounds of meat?!" Sara exclaimed. She shut the refrigerator door so she, too, could stare in disbelief at the evil whiteboard. Slowly, she transferred her gaze down to her short, orange haired friend. "_Besides, how bad can it be?_" she said, mimicking Megan in a mocking voice. Then her voice changed to one bordering on hysteria. "Well what did I _tell_ you? Famous _last words!_"

"Don't freak out! Don't freak out!" Megan said, holding up her SPORK in a rather bad attempt at defense, or perhaps an even worse attempt to hide behind it. "Maybe there's an industrial-sized freezer in here where they keep all the meat and stuff," she suggested, beating a hasty retreat from her glaring friend to open one of four large metal doors located along one wall of the kitchen. The large, pantry–like room turned out to be full of sacks of flour, dried beans, potatoes, bags of sugar, and, mystifyingly, cat food.

"I'll check the other one," Sara said, opening the next door in a blast of cold air. She peered into the arctic depths and cautiously walked in, goosebumps prickling into existence on her arms. She glanced around at the frost-covered lumps crouched randomly on the shelves, and shivered. _Creepy..._ she thought.

"Well, this is obviously the freezer, but there's no way we're going to be able to thaw out 150 pounds of meat in time to serve dinner."

Sara walked out of the freezer and pushed the door shut, and then leaned against it with her arms crossed. Megan looked over and adopted a similar position against the counter, facing the freezer and her friend.

"Well, crap. What're we going to do now?" Megan asked.

XXXXX

After much deliberation, debating, and throwing of various kitchen utensils, the girls had a plan.

"Chicken, peas, and peaches," Sara announced, banging a can of diced peaches and a bag of dried peas on the counter to emphasize her point. Megan thought for a moment.

"What are we going to do about the chicken? I don't know how to _prepare_ a chicken for cooking, much less _cook_ one. And I thought you said we didn't have enough time to thaw one out anyway," Megan said, staring at the door to the giant freezer.

"Can't we just order a bunch of pre-roasted chickens, cut them up, and dump them into the pans?" Sara asked, flopping down on a stool and reaching for a phonebook.

"Yeah! I'll start the peas, you just boil them, don't you?" Megan asked, pushing her orange bangs back behind her ears and removing her duffle bag from the pot rack so she could go in search of large pots in which to boil the 52 pounds of peas.

"I'm pretty sure that's what you do," Sara agreed, flipping through the phonebook to find a grocery store that looked like a likely candidate. Megan looked around in despair, still searching for a pot big enough to hold 52 pounds of peas.

"Try the storage room in the back," Sara suggested, dialing a phone number that adorned a likely looking deli add in the phonebook. As Megan walked off to try looking in the storage room, someone picked up the phone.

"Hey,thisisFrank'sdeli,howcanIhelpyou?" an extremely perky person's voice blasted through the phone line into Sara's ear.

Sara winced. "You can talk slower, for one thing. For another, do you sell pre-roasted chicken?" she asked. On the other end of the phone there was a loud clanging sound in the background like someone dropping a pot, followed by the hiss of steam. Then the person answered, this time clearly making an effort to speak slower.

"Yes, we do."

"Great! Do you sell them in bulk, say, about 150 pounds?"

"Uhhmm…lemme ask Ted."

"'K." It was a good thing that the person had gone to ask 'Ted', because Megan came back into the room, dragging a pot the size of a household stove. Sara gawked as Megan pulled the thing over to the giant sink and used the hose nozzle to try and fill it up.

"Megan! Go back and find a smaller pot! That thing'll never fit on the stovetop!" Sara whisper-yelled, covering the phone. Megan was about to reply when a tiny voice, presumably 'Ted', shouted from the phone: "Hello? Anyone there?"

Sara turned back to the phone. "Yes. So do you sell in bulk? Say, 150 pounds?"

Meanwhile, Megan sighed in exasperation, then struggled to dump the water out of the pot. Once she had upended half the water into the sink, and the other half onto the floor, she dragged the pot back to its lair in the back room. Sara rolled her eyes at the slippery mess on the floor.

"Yeah, but not that many," 'Ted' said, amid clanging and crashes.

"Oh, ok. Thanks anyway!" Sara said, wondering where in the world 'Ted' was.

"Welcome. Bye."

"Bye." Sara put the phone down and flipped through a few more pages in the phonebook, before hearing a loud crash like many pots and pans being strewn all over the floor, followed by a mini-earthquake and profuse cursing.

Sara calmly flicked through another page as Megan stomped back into the kitchen, holding what looked like a giant, shallow, stainless-steel mixing bowl. Sara looked up at Megan, who was holding onto the handle of the "bowl" and looking expectantly at Sara.

"Um, Megan? That's a mixing bowl with a handle."

"No it's not, it's a wok. They've got giant ones back there. Do you think this will be big enough?" Megan asked, looking down at the wok, which was at least one and a half feet in diameter.

"Yeah, but you'll have to cook several dozen woks-full," Sara said, turning back to the phonebook. "Besides, you're not supposed to cook peas in woks. They're for stir-fry."

"Yeah, well, you wouldn't let me cook them in the huge pot I found," Megan said grumpily, as she began filling the wok with water from the spigot.

"True, but it wouldn't have fit on the burner. And besides," Sara pointed out, preparing to dodge whatever Megan would choose to throw at her, "You'd of had to stand on a chair to _look_ inside, much less _stir_ it."

Sure enough, Megan threw a towel at Sara, which flew through the empty space where Sara's head had been a moment prior.

"I'm not _that_ short! Besides, you would've had to stand on a chair too," Megan stated huffily, putting the wok on a burner and turning the dial on 'high heat'.

Sara picked up the phone again to dial "Deli Deliveries" and half listened as Megan crashed around the kitchen, picking up all the kitchen utensils they'd thrown back and forth during their 'discussion'.

"Hello, Deli Deliveries, may I help you?" someone on the phone asked. Gentle music was playing in the background; it reminded Sara of elevator or shopping-mall music.

"Yes, do you sell pre-roasted chicken in bulk?" Sara asked, trying to drown out the sounds of Megan running back and forth between the pantry room and the stove, dropping bags of dried peas on the counter.

"Yes we do. What kind would you like and how many pounds?" The person on the other end seemed to be oblivious of the ruckus raised as Megan freaked out about the wok boiling over.

"Um…just regular roasted chicken, no spices or anything, and…" Sara consulted the little board with the measurements on it. "150 pounds."

The person on the other end went strangely quiet. Sara thought it was because Megan was now yelping because she'd gotten boiling water on her hand and then cut herself trying to open the bag of dried peas with a knife. But instead of inquiring about the yelping in the background, the person said: "Oh my…What on _earth_ are they for?"

Sara quickly thought of a lie; she was pretty sure telling the person that she was cooking for a top secret government agency that included a demon and a fish-guy was _not_ the proper thing to say.

"Yeah, I know, it sounds like a lot, doesn't it?" Sara said, trying to act nonchalant. "I need food for an office party, and everyone who works here is coming for dinner and bringing their families."

"Oh! Well, glad to be of service then. We'll need the address of your office; I'm assuming you want them delivered there?"

"Yes, please." Sara thought about the Happy Birthday napkin and tried to picture the address in her head, then gave it to the person on the phone, praying that she had remembered correctly, or someone was going to get one hell of a surprise when 150 pounds of chicken was delivered to their door. Sara hung up when she was finished and sighed in relief; her sigh was echoed by Megan, who had put a band-aid on her knife-induced injury, and was currently stirring the wok of peas with a long-handled wooden spoon. Megan added another bag of peas to the boiling water, and it was only then that she read the cooking instructions.

"Uh-oh….I forgot about butter!" Megan cried, running over to the huge refrigerator and pulling out a little plastic container of butter.

"What _about_ butter?" Sara asked, glancing at the clock on the wall. They still had about an hour left—plenty of time for the chicken to arrive—and they didn't have to put all the food out at once anyway.

"I forgot that you're supposed to put some in the peas!" Megan scooped out a chunk of butter with the Spork she had pulled from her pocket, and plopped said chunk into the peas. She capped the container and tossed it to Sara, who put it back in the fridge.

"Why's that?" Sara asked as she closed the fridge door, then walked into the vast pantry and retrieved an armload of canned peaches.

"I dunno. It says to add butter on the package, and besides, my Mum always does it," Megan said, stirring the wok full of peas.

"Oh, okay then." Sara dumped the cans of peaches onto a plot of unoccupied counter space with dull thuds and clanks, before opening some drawers in search of a can-opener. Sara found oven mitts, spoons, dulled knives, mixing bowls, countertop and hand-held electric mixers, cookbooks, and various other things all stacked neatly together, but no can-opener.

While Sara's frustration level was rising like the magma in a volcano on the verge of erupting, Megan was calmly scooping the cooked peas out of the wok with a hand-held strainer and dumping them into a clear bowl.

"Hey, Megan?" Sara asked, almost ready to blow the top off of her mental Frustration Volcano.

"Hmm?" Megan asked calmly, chasing a single pea in endless circles around the wok.

"Did you see a can-opener anywhere?" Sara asked, trying desperately to siphon off her frustration by glaring daggers at a cabinet knob.

"Umm…there might be one in the cabinets over the counter, but there weren't any in the drawers," Megan said, unaware that she had just narrowly avoided a catastrophe in the form of an erupting volcano.

"Thank you!" Sara said happily, endorphins finally kicking in and making her disgustingly cheerful.

"Welcome," Megan said, dumping two more packages of dried peas into the giant wok. Sara opened three cabinets before finally locating the precious can opener.

XXXXX

The agents filing into the Mess hall were surprised to see that there were no people bustling behind the glass counter, loading up plates and handing them out. Instead, the glass viewing window over the food was gone, and a sign hastily made out of paper was propped up on top of the counter; it said:

_Due to lack of staff, you will need to serve yourselves. Take your tray from the pile next to this sign; you will find ladles and forks in each pan. Utensils are at the end of the line, along with the napkins and drinks. When you're finished, scrape any lumps left into the trashcan and put your tray in the bin of water next to it. Have a nice day!_

The agents who read the sign exchanged glances and lifted the lids off the pans to find that they were full of chicken, peas, and diced peaches in thick sugary syrup. Just then, Sara came bustling up to the counter with an armload of neatly stacked trays, dumped them on the counter by the sign, and hastily scrawled another note in a blank space on the sign.

Once she'd left, the sign read:

_Drinks are self-serve, on a table with condiments at end of counter._

Sure enough, when the agents reached the end of the counter, there was a self-serve machine that was normally filled with coffee or soda. However, new, hastily created masking-tape labels had replaced the original signs, and the agents were surprised to see that the machine was filled with water, milk, orange juice, and "juice blend."

The agents stared in disbelief.

"What?! We have to eat HEALTHY now?" Agent Lemming (the Fourth) joked. Agent Drummand gave him a sly look.

"You'd better eat healthy, after all, none of the previous Agent Lemmings have died of heart disease. Such a pity. That increases your chances of succumbing to it by at least threefold."

Agent Lemming (the Fourth) looked rather pale and opted for extra helpings of peas and water rather than the soda he'd found moldering in the staff refrigerator.

XXXXX

"Ungh!" Sara grunted, trying to pile just one more jumbo-sized bowl of peas onto the top rack of a cart. Megan was trying unsuccessfully to lug four jugs full of "juice blend" to the bottom rack of the already crowded cart.

"Not to be rude, but can you guys hurry it up?" Myers asked, jigging nervously in place and checking his watch. He was clearly eager to be on his way to his rendezvous with his date.

"Well, we didn't know we had to fill the _friggin' cart!_" Megan snarled, glaring daggers at him as he continued to stand beside the cart, doing nothing.

"Language!" Sara gasped, struggling beneath the weight of yet another bowl of peaches. Just then, Myers glanced down at the platters heaped with meat and frowned in confusion.

"Chicken? Hellboy wanted steak."

It was all the pair could do to restrain themselves. Myers took one look at their faces and said, "Oh, …right then!"

That said, he quickly grabbed the handles of the cart and beat a rapid retreat, shouting a hasty "Bye!" over his shoulder.

Sara shook her head and caught sight of some agents looking over the serving counter at them.

"What!?!" she snapped, brandishing a ladle as if it were a sword. The agents quickly muttered incoherent excuses and went back to loading up their trays.

XXXXX

"Alright! Ladies, this is your room. Enjoy." The chipper voice faded away as the two teens slimed into their room, exhausted and worn-out from their first night on the job. They barely noticed their suitcases, which had been retrieved from the kitchen and brought to their rooms, presumably by a thoughtful Agent. They made their slow, laborious way to the bunk beds stashed neatly in one corner of the room, and collapsed side-by-side on the bottom bunk.

Silence reigned for a good ten minutes as they inspected the springs of the bunk above them.

Megan slowly sat up, leaning back on her elbows for support.

"Well. THAT was an experience to write home about…"

Sara smacked a hand over her tired eyes. "Oh, God! That was just one night! We have to do this _three times_ tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after…"

"Yeah, well don't remind me. Cleanup was hell."

"Well, for starters, we cooked _way_ too many peas. A quarter pound of peas per person?! That's like a vegetarian special! And on top of that, _you_ spilled a can of peaches on your way to the serving counter."

"Well _par_-_DON_ me if I tripped over a discarded chicken container!"

"That's not my fault, it crawled out of the trashcan and deposited itself directly into your path!" Before Megan could do anything but laugh, Sara said, "Anyhoo, we should unpack. The faster that's over and done with, the faster _we_ can get to bed."

The pair properly examined the room, but there was really nothing special about it. There was a normal-sized dresser with six drawers—three for each of them—a partially open door which led to the bathroom, another door which was a closet, a small table with two chairs, a bedside table, and an ancient TV set. The room reminded Megan of a cracker: plain, white, and oppressively dull.

"Well, there's certainly room for decoration," Sara quipped. "It's like a college dorm room; they give you all the same stuff and turn you loose." Sara approached her suitcase with the intention of unpacking. Megan's head shot up and she quickly zoomed in front of Sara, grabbing her bulging bag and heading for the bathroom.

"Dibs on bathroom!" she shouted hurriedly as she made a beeline for the tiled shelter complete with functioning toilet. Sara watched her friend slam the door shut and shrugged. Goofiness was mandatory when Megan was around.

Inside the confines of the bathroom, Megan locked the door as stealthily as she could, then sat comfortably on the counter and waited expectantly.

Sara picked up her suitcase and plopped it down on the dresser, casually unzipping it and leaning over to look inside.

Megan heard the sound of the zipper on Sara's suitcase and grinned, waiting with baited breath for what she was sure would come next.

Silence. Then…

"AAAAIIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEE!!!! Ahh! Ahh! Ahhhh! Get it off me! Get it off meeeeeee!!!"

Megan stifled her laughter by shoving a large, fluffy hand-towel into her mouth. Meanwhile, Sara kept right on screaming, followed shortly by the sounds of a large, panicked body flailing wildly around and consequently stumbling and tripping all over the place. This continued for a long while, even after the cause of Sara's terror slithered under the bathroom door, up Megan's leg, and curled lovingly around her neck.

"MEGAN MARIE LEWIS!! OPEN THIS DOOR!"

Megan arranged her features to those of utmost innocence.

"There's no need to shout," she said calmly. Her statement was followed by copious knob-rattling and door-banging. "I don't know what you're all upset about…"

"Upset? UPSET!?! You want to know WHY I'm _UPSET_?!?"

"Well, yeah. You're practically breaking the door down for no apparent reason…"

"I'll give you a REASON!! That ABOMINATION—!"

"You mean Stuart?" Megan asked, feigning innocence.

"Yes! I know you put that _thing_ in my bag! Or it slithered in! You're both conspiring against me, I know it!"

"Only when the mood strikes us. Isn't that right, Stuart?"

The snake around her neck nodded, doing a credible imitation of the pleased smile currently plastered across Megan's face.

"When you come out of there, I'm gonna—!"

"Well, in that case, I'll just sleep in here tonight!" Megan cheerfully interrupted. Ignoring further threats and shouts from Sara, Megan layered several of the large, plush white towels in the tub and curled up, quite content and satisfied.

"Ahh, the snake-in-the-bag never gets old, does it, Stuart?"

Stuart unwound from Megan's neck and arranged his coils in a neat spiral next to her head, sighing happily. And so, Megan drifted off to sleep, ignoring the muffled and irate mutterings from the other side of the door as Sara finished unpacking and climbed into the bottom bunk.

Authors' Notes: If you enjoyed the chapter (or not…), let us know! We really do appreciate feedback, even though it took us so long to update.


	4. In Which Broom Goes OUT For Breakfast

**Chapter Four: In Which Broom Goes _OUT_ For Breakfast**

Co-written by FlyingFish15 and Blu Embyr.

Disclaimer: We own nothing, save what sprung from the depths of our own twisted imaginations…

Author Notes: Blu: Woohoo! Another update! Told yah we would…On another note, it is our personal opinion that last chapter's dinner went far,_ far_ too well. Hence breakfast will be Hell.

FF15: I like how my penname is shortened, I feel like I'm the Flying Fighter Jet 15, you know; Mach 15 or whatever. But seriously, stick to the FlyingFish.

Blu: Sadly, there aren't any fish flying in this chapter, but watch out….you just might get brained with an orange.

* * *

Sara was dreaming blissfully, snuggled up in her sheets, hugging her pillow and smiling slightly. She was so comfortable and happy, nothing could possibly— 

"WHY AREN'T YOU UP?!?"

The panicked shout jolted Sara from dreamland with the effectiveness of a herd of stampeding elephants dropping bombshells. She jerked upright so fast she hit her head on the edge of the bunk above her with a loud CRACK! Unsurprisingly, this did nothing to improve her disoriented and startled state.

"What?! What's going on?! Whowhatwhenwhere?!" she muttered in quick succession, her sleep clouded eyes darting to find the source of the shout that had so rudely awakened her. Her gaze finally settled on a baffled looking Agent Myers, at which point Sara yelped and pulled her sheets up tightly around her.

"What're you doing in my room?! Don't you know how to _knock?!_" she demanded.

Myers looked rather taken aback. "Yes, but—you're supposed to be down in the kitchen, fixing breakfast."

Sara stared at him, then, on reflex, turned to look at the digital alarm clock on her bedside table, expecting to see something like 9:00 a.m. Instead, the cheerful green, glowing numbers merrily told her it was an un-godly five in the morning. Sara returned her incredulous gaze to Myers.

"What? The sun isn't even up!" she exclaimed. "Well, I guess it isn't, seeing as we don't have windows this deep underground—"

"I'm not joking, if that's what you mean," Myers said. "Really, you should have been up at four—"

"_What?!_"

"—to have breakfast ready by six," Myers explained. "And when Professor Broom noticed you weren't—he gets up early, you see—he sent me to wake you—"

"Nobody told us we had to be up at four! If they had, I would have been!"

"Yes, well, now you know, don't you?" Myers said, heading for the door. "You better hurry up." Suddenly he stopped and turned around, his hand on the doorknob. "Wait. Where's Megan?" he asked, directing his gaze at the upper bunk. Sara suddenly remembered that her bizarre friend had spent the night in the bathroom, and because of this, Megan's bed was completely empty and spotlessly made-up.

"Oh! Megan!"

Sara slid out of the bunk, trailing her sheets behind her like some sort of odd cape, and headed, much to Myers's confusion, straight for the closed bathroom door.

"Megan?" Sara called. "You have to get up!"

Myers stared at her. "Megan slept in the _bathroom?_"

"Yes, because she sicced her snake on me." Having given this more than cryptic explanation, she turned back to the door and rattled the handle. Still locked. She rolled her eyes.

"Megan! Get up! NOW!"

Still no response, though Sara was certain she heard a sleepy mutter coming from the while-tiled depths, accompanied by what was obviously Megan's attempt at fake snoring, although the sound was more akin to the roaring decibels of an industrial chainsaw. This slight encouragement, however, did nothing to dispel Sara's frustration. So, with as much dignity as she could muster while dressed in pajamas with sheets wrapped around her and Agent Myers staring at her, Sara drew herself up to her full and considerable height, and:

"MEGAN MARIE LEWIS! GET UP _THIS INSTANT!_" she yelled, banging on the door with both fists.

In response, at long last, came the sound of fumbling accompanied by the crash of a body tripping over the edge of a tub, followed by profuse muttering. The door flew open and Sara was faced with a very disgruntled Megan. Or, more accurately, she was faced with the curtain of very ruffled orange hair that hung in front of her friend's face.

"_What?!_" Megan demanded, her voice somewhat muffled by her hair.

"We have to go cook breakfast."

"Really? What time is it? Eleven?" Megan asked, rummaging around in her hair as though looking for something. And she probably was, knowing Megan. Sara rolled her eyes.

"No, not eleven," Sara replied. "Lower."

"Nine?"

"Lower."

"Eight?" she asked, continuing the rummaging.

"You're getting warmer."

"Surely _not_ seven!"

"Nope. Warmer."

"_Six?_"

"No. I hate to tell you this, Megan, but, it's, um, actually five."

"WHAT?! That's practically vampiric! Who gets up at five in the morning?!"

"Apparently we do. When we're late. We're actually supposed to get up at four."

"_WHAT?!_ Says WHO?"

"Him," Sara answered. She pointed at Myers.

Somehow Megan saw through her curtain of hair and turned to look at the Agent. And stood very, very still. Sara supposed her friend was giving him her patented death glare.

"Um…good morning. I'm, uh, leaving now! Bye!" That said, the Agent made a quick exit, closing the door behind him.

Megan shook her head, with the result that she looked even more like a moving stack of orange hay, and continued rummaging through her neon colored locks. Then, "Ah ha! There you are!" Megan shouted triumphantly as she pulled Stuart from her hair.

Sara grimaced and took a _big_ step back. "Keep that _thing _away from me."

"Awww! But Stuart wants to say good morning!" Megan said, cheerfully proffering Stuart as though she honestly expected Sara to kiss the top of the snake's head in greeting.

Instead, Sara's upper lip curled in disgust. "He can say good morning to your sock drawer. Now get dressed!"

XXXXX

A short time later the pair had found their way through the labyrinth of the BPRD and finally managed to locate the kitchen. As they had the night before, they stood in the middle of the linoleum floor, staring at the empty counters and stovetops, hoping they would magically fill themselves with breakfast foods.

"We need a genie," Megan said, breaking the silence.

"I doubt a genie would be warmly received in a place that calls it self the Bureau for Paranormal Research _and Defense._"

"Whatever. Stuart thinks so, too. Two to one, we win."

Sara rolled her eyes. She had a feeling she would be doing an uncharacteristic amount of eye rolling for the rest of the foreseeable future, judging from their current situation.

"Now, we need an idea for breakfast."

"No, duh."

"Perhaps something simple and easy to fix," Sara suggested. "Like—"

"Overnight French toast!" Megan said brightly.

"Uh, Megan? I hate to break it to you, but there's a reason it's called 'overnight'. And we have, like, an hour."

"Well, fine. How about cereal?"

"If they wanted cereal, do you think they'd have _us_ down here? We're supposed to cook, not dump cereal out of boxes!"

"Okay…how about toast? Toast, toast, toast, toast. That's a funny word. Have you ever noticed that?"

"No I haven't. But then again, other then today, I haven't recently woken up at five and been expected to feed some two hundred or so people breakfast when I only have an hour to cook."

"Hence toast."

"Toast it is," Sara sighed. "We can put out different toppings: butter, cream cheese, peanut butter, honey…that sort of thing. And we'll need something to go with it…eggs, maybe?" she suggested.

"And milk and orange juice to drink. That way we've covered the basic food groups: food, food, and food! Now let's get this show on the road! Have at ye, frying pan!" Megan yelled, brandishing a spatula at the pot rack. Stuart, curled up around her neck like some bizarre piece of jewelry, hissed menacingly at the frying pan so clearly vexing his orange haired biped.

Sara took one look at her friend's strange antics and snatched up the jumbo sized frying pan. "_I'm_ doing the eggs. There's no _way_ I'm letting you near a frying pan! You can pour the orange juice into the dispenser and make the toast."

"You just want to play with the 'pretty blue flames'," Megan said knowingly.

"I do not!" Sara defended, her cheeks turning red.

"Do so!" And with that said, Megan disappeared into the pantry, presumably to locate enough bread to feed two hundred some people.

"Do not!" Sara yelled, grinning. She had had the last words! It was a triumph; not many people could have the last words when it came to arguing with Megan.

She placed the frying pan on the stove and fetched a crate of eggs from the industrial sized refrigerator. It was a lot of eggs, but she figured that if she did a whole bunch at once, it would go faster. The pan was certainly large enough; she could probably fit ten or so if she was careful, she decided as she turned the flames on and reached into the crate for a handful of eggs.

She had just begun cracking them into the pan when Megan returned, hauling a sack of bread that was nearly as big as she was. Sara turned her attention away from the frying eggs and over to her friend, who was now staring in apparent bewilderment between the huge sack of bread and the single, tiny toaster on the kitchen counter.

"Well, _that's_ not gonna work. It has slots for, what, six pieces?" Megan said. "What now?"

"You could try getting out a pancake griddle and toast them on the stove."

Megan nodded. "Oh! I saw a huge waffle iron somewhere; I bet we could use that, too! I'll just prop it open with a spoon or something so it doesn't completely squash the bread."

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Sara asked doubtfully.

"Hey why not? What's the worst that could—never mind," she said, seeing Sara's glare, and perhaps also remembering what had happened with dinner the night before.

"Thanks to you, dinner's minor catastrophes will _pale_ in comparison to breakfast's," Sara accused.

"Hey, you said it, not me! I didn't even finish what I was going to say! Oh, and by the way, you _do so_ just want to play with the flames."

"I do not!" Sara insisted.

"Do so. Actually, speaking of which, whether you want to or not isn't exactly an option anymore," Megan said, the most serene of expressions on her face disrupted somewhat by the wicked, knowing glint in her eyes.

"Why?" Sara asked, puzzled.

"Turn around."

Sara whipped around. And froze, momentarily stunned by the sizzling, bubbling, _burning_ eggs.

"Ahhhhhhhh!" she yelled, yanking the pan off the stove and dropping it into the nearest sink and turning the water on full blast—which created a massive cloud of steam. Megan watched with some interest as her friend disappeared into the cloud, whereupon copious amounts of coughing could be heard from inside it. Megan could only assume it was Sara coughing, and not the burning eggs, breathing their last.

When the steam cleared there was Sara, looking slightly damp and holding the handle of the frying pan, which she was vigorously shaking in an attempt to dislodge the egg remnants from its surface. With a strange sucking sound like a boot being pulled from mud, the primordial sludge that had formerly been eggs separated from the pan and slid slowly, dejectedly down the drain to be devoured by the garbage disposal.

_One really has to wonder about its tastes in cuisine,_ Megan thought as the garbage disposal grumbled and fell silent.

"Ten eggs. Burning at once. That's something I've never seen before," Megan said when Sara finally turned to her. "We should nominate it as a national landmark. What did you do? Forget to put butter in?"

"It was mostly you distracting me with this nonsense about toast," Sara grumbled.

"Yup, you forgot the butter," Megan said.

Still muttering and grumbling under her breath, Sara returned the pan to the stovetop and began breaking eggs into it, this time remembering to add butter to it _first_.

"Language," Megan reminded her, grinning even as she ducked the eggshells her friend tossed in her direction. Then she began stacking bread up on the counter.

"This stack goes to the toaster, this stack goes to the waffle-iron, and this stack goes to the griddle!" she announced, talking to Stuart. The snake nodded his approval, then had to cling tightly to Megan's neck as she wrestled first the enormous pancake griddle and then the equally enormous the waffle-iron into their places.

"Argh! There you go! Down to the gi-normous waffle-iron of doom!" Megan shouted, dropping slices of bread rather haphazardly onto the surface of the rapidly heating waffle-iron. She started to close the lid, then, remembering that it would crush the bread, she grabbed a nearby metal ladle and stuck it in the mechanism to prop it open slightly.

She tossed bread onto the griddle and into the toaster just as randomly, and then rummaged through the fridge. Upon finding no orange juice, or fruit juice of any kind for that matter, Megan sat back in thought, right in front of the open refrigerator door, gazing up at the looming monolith of chilled food. Around her neck, Stuart did a credible imitation of her expression, leaning his little snakey head on his tail in the manner of an extremely pensive thinker…or a dumb person trying to look smart.

However, being the incredibly intelligent snake that he was, Stuart soon found an 'easy' solution to his biped's problem. He slithered away from Megan and up into the open refrigerator; bathed in the chill of the refrigerator, Stuart dodged jars of sauce and, oddly, a container of rotten eggs, following his nose towards his ultimate goal.

A mere moment later, like Newton being struck on the head by an apple, Megan was brained by a large orange from the top shelf.

She scowled up at the refrigerator, then picked up the orange and glared at it as if it had willingly and maliciously fallen on her head. Then, also like Newton, Megan was struck with an earth-shattering idea.

"I'll _make_ orange juice!" she cried. "Quick, Sara, where's the juicer! Man the orange-mobile!"

Sara looked up from shoveling her second pan of eggs into a heated metal tub.

"Juicer? Why do you need a juicer?" she asked, confused. Then, "Close the refrigerator door, are you trying to air-condition the kitchen?"

"I'm going to _make_ orange juice, since we don't have any!" Megan said as she stood up to close the door. Right at eye level, Stuart peered out at her smugly, a pleased smile on his reptilian face.

"Aww, did you knock that orange out? What a good little snaky, yes you are!" she said, taking Stuart out and cuddling him, showering him with kisses and compliments. Sara rolled her eyes and went back to frying eggs, glancing over to the adjacent stovetop and the griddle of toast. Or, more accurately, carbon.

"Hey, Megan? That toast is getting _really_ toasty over there," Sara said calmly, cracking another egg into the frying pan. Megan yelped and quickly ran over to the griddle, yanking it off the burners as she went. She watched as the glowing toast embers slowly fizzled out, holding Stuart in one hand and gripping a handle of the griddle in the other.

Sara cracked another egg.

XXXXX

After that fiasco, Megan had a whole new griddle stocked with bread, and set Stuart next to it, complete with blast-shield in the form of a large glass bowl, to watch the toast. Megan turned her attention to the waffle-iron stocked with toast, which had fared only slightly better than the griddle toast.

She sighed and grabbed the metal ladle, intending to open the waffle iron and pull out the crisped toast.

"_AAAAAAHHHHH!_ _Hot hot hot!_" Megan danced back from the superheated metal ladle, blowing on her burned hand. Sara turned around in confusion.

"What'd you do now?" she asked, watching her comrade dash for the sink.

"_HOT!_" was all that Megan said. Sara looked towards Stuart, who gestured with his tail to the faintly glowing metal ladle protruding from the waffle iron.

"Oh," Sara said, glancing back at her friend, who was cradling her hand like her fingers had just been lopped off with a rusty cleaver.

"That was hot," Megan muttered, inspecting the raised red blisters on her palm.

"Use an oven mitt next time, or better yet, _don't do it again!_" Sara scolded. "Maybe you should stick to making orange juice for a few minutes."

"Right." Megan carefully emptied the waffle iron and refilled it, replacing the ladle with a hefty, and much safer, wooden spoon. Then Stuart alerted her to the griddle-toast by knocking over a stand of cutlery, and she flipped the toast over.

"And now for something completely different! Namely, orange juice!" Megan said, regaining some of her spunk. She wandered through the industrial fridge, which was next to the similarly-sized pantry, and emerged with several net bags of oranges. She plopped them onto the counter, then poked around through the drawers, looking for the elusive juicer. After five changes of toast, Megan _still_ had not found the juicer.

"Fine then, I'll just squish you myself!" Megan said, ripping open a bag of oranges. The oranges scattered everywhere, rolling off the counter and onto the floor, as if in a desperate, last ditch attempt to escape their fate.

"Have at ye!" Megan cried, whipping out her spork and stabbing oranges left and right, flinging them back onto the counter. She skewered the last one and held it aloft like it was a trophy.

"Alas, the chase is over, my good pal. I knew ye well. But the Agents will know your delicious juices better!" With much maniacal laughter, Megan plonked the orange on the counter and began whaling away at it with a frying pan. It was a sad scene of violence, characterized by pulp flying in all directions, juice running down the counter and onto the floor, and peels being split asunder under the onslaught.

Sara looked on in horror, mouth agape and eyes staring; a fried egg slid off her spatula to fall wetly to the floor.

"Megan! What do you think you're doing!" she yelped, afraid her friend had lost the last vestiges of her sanity.

Megan turned around, her innocent expression marred by rivulets of orange juice running down her face and the sticky pulp of many a good orange spattered on her shirt.

"I'm making orange juice without a juicer," she explained as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

XXXXX

Abe and Hellboy moseyed down the corridors of the BPRD, chatting amicably.

"I really am glad you decided to join me," Abe said to his large friend.

Hellboy made a non-committal gesture. "Hey, I figured it would be worth it to see those two in action, they seem like a good pair. Not to mention last night's dinner was pretty good for their first night, even if I didn't get steak."

They were suddenly joined by Myers, who looked a wee bit haggard and slightly put-out. Abe looked at him and the fish-man's face fell.

"I'm sorry, John. That must have been awful," Abe said, having just read Myers' thoughts about the previous evening. Hellboy looked confused.

"I take it that the date didn't go well, huh?"

"You could say that. Or, you could say that I ended up working instead of going on a date," Myers said with a sigh.

"How's that?" Hellboy asked.

"Well, it turns out my date was a zombie, and—

"Wait, what? Geez boyscout, you really know how to pick 'em," Hellboy muttered. Myers looked indignant.

"It was a blind date, _okay!_ And I ended up having to spend my entire evening trying to kill her, then I had to pack up the little pieces and bring them back here, then fill out reams of paper so the remains could be put in storage!" As an afterthought, he added, "And I ruined my best suit!"

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

"That sucks," Hellboy said.

"Perpetually eloquent, aren't you?" Abe joked.

"Yeah, yeah, you're one…to…talk…" Hellboy trailed off as he pushed through the double doors and into the cafeteria, and stopped.

"What's the hold-up?" Myers asked, trying in vain to peer around Hellboy's bulk.

"Well, that's, er, interestin'…." Hellboy muttered, staring over the counter and into the kitchen.

"What?" Myers persisted. Hellboy moved into the line, absently picking up a tray on his way. Abe and Myers followed him and looked over the counter, and into the kitchen.

It was absolute carnage.

Well, if you were an orange, anyway.

Orange remnants were splattered everywhere: walls, floor, and, mystifyingly, the ceiling. Not one surface remained unscathed. And then there were the cooks themselves.

"Yeah…the orange juice just didn't work out," the short girl with orange hair said. Her statement was punctuated by the SPLORSH of pulp falling from the ceiling to splatter all over Megan's orange hair. Actually, other than the texture difference, it matched pretty well. Megan, however, was not pleased and stood scowling, a drip of orange juice making its sedate way down her forehead and then slipping down to the tip of her nose.

"I can see that," Hellboy muttered. "What'd you do? Stick 'em in the blender and leave the top off?"

"Not quite," Megan said, her initial shock upon meeting Hellboy was completely buried under her irritation at herself for being the cause of the huge mess. Sara bustled past, carrying a tray of eggs; other than a few orange stains on her shirt, she appeared relatively unscathed by the massacre.

"She hit the oranges with a frying pan in order to make orange juice," Sara explained. "Honestly, it's a wonder she managed to get any in the container at all."

The trio in front of the counter watched Sara disappear back into the kitchen after depositing her load, then, as one, they turned and looked at Megan, who was still standing in front of them with a platter of burned toast and orange pulp on her nose.

"What? There's no juicers in this kitchen," Megan said defensively.

"No…but there is orange concentrate in the freezer," Abe pointed out. "Just add water."

Megan stared at him so long he thought her eyes would dry out. And perhaps they would've—if orange juice hadn't trickled out of her hair and into her eyes. Megan dropped the tray onto the counter and rubbed her eyes furiously, trying to get the stinging juice out of them.

"My -ow!- God Abe! -yowch!- You could've -errgh!- told me a little _sooner!_" Megan yelped, hopping around on the spot and digging at her eyes. The Agents didn't know quite what to do, so they looked at each other and shuffled down the line.

They soon discovered that breakfast consisted of burned toast (some with a odd pattern reminiscent of a checkerboard), fried eggs (some drippy and runny, others burned on the bottom), milk, and, of course, the infamous orange juice.

Not wanting to be rude, they filled their trays with the questionable breakfast items and sat down at an empty table. They stared down at their plates dubiously, giving everything a thorough poking with their forks. Bravely, Abe cut a tiny piece off of an egg and swallowed it, without chewing.

"Eggs are good," Abe said, tucking in.

"Depends on your definition of 'good'," Myers muttered, having popped the yolk of his egg to expose the runny 'goodness'. Hellboy was gobbling his down, preferring to simply inhale it instead of looking at it for fear of actually considering what he was putting in his mouth. He glanced over at Myers, who was eyeing his popped egg askance, as though it were some sort of giant pimple filled with yellow puss.

"Sop up the runny junk with the toast," Hellboy advised. "Softens up the burned bits."

"Euughh! Now I _really_ don't want to eat it!" Myers said, pushing his plate away.

Hellboy shrugged. "More for me." The red demon grabbed Myer's plate and added it to his tray, slurping the runny egg down without a second thought.

"Manners," a voice reprimanded. Hellboy whirled around in his chair, half a fried egg hanging out of his mouth. Upon seeing his father staring down at him, Hellboy quickly sucked the egg into his mouth and wiped his face.

"Mornin' Father," the demon said after he had nearly choked swallowing the egg.

Broom tried to remain as stern as possible, but couldn't help letting a little of his amusement into his voice. "Glad to see someone is enjoying breakfast. As we should, after all, it is their first full day. It's inevitable that some mistakes crop up when one is getting used to a new job." Broom chuckled "…although, even I must admit that orange juice on the ceiling isn't exactly within the realm of expected problems."

"You can say that again; the little one's a tad…odd."

"Tsk. That's big talk coming from _you_."

"Thanks, Dad," Hellboy said sarcastically.

"They just need time to get settled in, after that, the meals should be less…turbulent." Broom smiled around at everyone at the table. "And on that note, I'm going out for breakfast!" The Professor turned and walked off with a twinkle in his eye, leaning on his cane.

"He could at least bring some doughnuts back for us," Myers muttered. "I'm starving."

"And whose fault is that?" Abe pointed out, gesturing with a burned crust. "You could have just clammed up and eaten your soggy egg."

"Says the guy who thinks rotten eggs are delicious," the agent muttered.

XXXXX

When Abe went up to return his tray, Sara was standing behind the counter, offloading more eggs into the heated tubs.

"The eggs were good, but I really prefer them rotten," Abe said, sliding his tray neatly onto a stack of dirty ones.

"_What?_" Sara asked, sure she had heard wrong.

"Yes, you heard right. Rotten eggs. To you, trash. To me, a delicacy."

"Oh," Sara said faintly. "I'll…keep that in mind."

"When you two are done down here, why not come up to the library? I could use the company, and I'm sure you could as well," Abe said, leaning on the counter.

"Oi! Abe!" Hellboy shouted. "Stop chattin' up the cooks and get your blue butt over here!"

"I wasn't 'chatting up' the cooks as you so eloquently put it," Abe said indignantly, though his gills turned a darker shade of orange.

"Yer right, you're only chattin' up one of 'em!"

Abe scowled and stalked out of the cafeteria amid the howls of laughter from his companions.

Sara watched him go, a hint of pink in her cheeks. "Was he really? I thought he was just being polite," she said, blinking.

Megan grinned at her mischievously. "Knockin' them dead already, Sara!"

Sara's blush intensified and she scooped up a handful of pulp and chucked it at her friend. Megan barely even winced; at this point, the addition of more pulp hardly made a difference to her already sticky and soaked state. Stuart, however, now back to hanging around Megan's neck, was less than happy about being continually drenched in the sad remains of the citrus fruits.

"He's too old for me anyways," Sara muttered to cover her embarrassment, stalking off to the back of the kitchen and slamming pots and pans into the sink where she began viciously scouring them with undue vigor.

"Yeah. Try over a hundred years too old. Not to mention the wrong species."

"That's not very nice! How do you know he's not the same species?!" Sara demanded, slamming a pot down into the sink so hard that soapy water splashed out over the counter.

Megan's eyes bugged out, an expression that only served to make her look even more insane. "Dude, he's a FISH! Or did you somehow miss those GILLS?! The BLUE SKIN?!"

"Whatever," Sara muttered. "Doesn't seem to bother Liz that Hellboy's a demon, does it?"

"What?" Megan asked, looking supremely confused.

"Didn't you see how they were looking at each other in the Professor's office yesterday?"

"Ummm…no?"

"Never mind," said Sara, exasperated. "Just clean up. And after that, maybe I'll dunk you in the sink and you won't even have to take a shower."

"What?! Never! I shall not submit to being dunked in water! My sticky, orange covered state is a grisly trophy from my victorious battle with the evil, malicious oranges! My appearance shall serve as a warning to those future oranges; none shall come near!" Megan announced, striking a regal pose, one foot propped up on top of a stray cooking pot that had somehow ended up on the floor.

"You're right about that," Sara replied, "Give it a few hours, and when you start to smell like rotten fruit, no one will be coming near you except the BPRD's hazardous waste team, who will drag you off for decontamination. Oh, and your snake, too."

"Nooo! Not STUART!" Megan yelled, cowering and clutching at her beloved pet.

"Then start cleaning! Most of this is your mess, anyway!"

And so Megan reluctantly picked up a mop and began half-heartedly smearing orange pulp and bits of rind across the floor in her attempt to 'clean'.

"Clean? What is this 'clean' thing?" she muttered under her breath. "I am the Queen of Disorganization, Chaos, and Other _Nasty_ Things, Including That Apple Core Moldering Under My Bed at Home! I do NOT clean!"

But apparently even the Queen of Disorganization, Chaos, and other titles here omitted for the sake of space, could be forced to clean up under the steady glare of her best friend.

**epalladino:** glad to know we can make somebody (other than ourselves) laugh with our weird humor!:)

**Lokelani87:** here's your update! Hopefully we will be swift with the next one :)

**Ember Koramin:** NOOOOOOOOOOO! Not a sporkless day! Say it isn't so! We're so glad you like Stuart, we just kinda stuck him in for added humor.

**Carolyn:** Thankies for the ideas, glad you enjoyed!

**Helena Valentine:** One of the Best!?!?! Squeals of joy all around! Thank you!

Authors' Notes: Whew! Another chappie updated! Embarrassingly enough, several of these cooking accidents actually happened…to us! O.O Review pleeeeeaaaaazzzeeeeeee! We thrive on reviews!


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